Freshness of Beans and Ageing Coffee

This topic raises a lot of confusion and controversey and it is also one of the important variables to achieve a good cup of coffee.

Is fresh coffee always the best?

NO!  Coffee is not like bread or fresh baking.  Nothing beats hot bread or hot muffins out of the oven but this is not the same story with coffee.

When coffee is being roasted, many chemical reactions are taking place with CO2 being produced and trapped inside the coffee beans.  This gas is present in the flavour of the coffee when it is drank close to the roast date and it takes time for this gas to release from the coffee beans.  This is why most coffee packaging has one-way valves on the back which allows CO2 to release from the bag without oxygen entering the bag.  Every roaster I have encountered, instruct consumers to age the coffee for a certain timeframe before consuming.  If coffee is consumed before this timeframe you will notice more bubbles in the crema, the flavour will have some astringency and the coffee will not taste as smooth or flavourful as it should.

How long shall I age my coffee?

Every roaster is different and this isn't an easy answer and it depends on so many variables such as the coffee being roasted, the way it was roasted, the machine used for the roasting and temperature/humidity variables.  Many roaster are typically requesting 7-10 days as their optimum time for ageing.

How long shall I age coffee purchased from us?

Our coffee requires ageing longer than a lot of other coffee available on the New Zealand market and this is because of a) the device we use to roast our coffee is a Loring air roaster and b) our coffee isn't roasted too dark speaking on average for most of our range.

Espresso Roasts: we advise ageing our espresso roasts for a minimum of 7-14 days from the roast date.  Most of the coffee we are serving in our Milford espresso bar is at around 21-days.

Filter Roasts: beans use in filter have more leniancy due to no pressure being used in the extraction.  This means that we enjoy consuming beans within a week of roasting but also found that longer periods of ageing, particularly with higher grade specialty coffee improves results. Some of our high density Geisha or unique variety coffee's we are ageing for 2+ months for optimum flavour.

Here's two different videos that discuss this topic further.